In many cases, the primary purpose of producing a music video is to promote a song, but for Oxygen Music, the most important goal is to capture the moment of worship filled with the presence of the Lord on video. The filming location was the auditorium of New Life Christian Church. This is the place where New Life Christ Church members gather to worship every week with countless memories of encounters with God, which was an ideal location for the shoot.
This time, 16 members of the Church worship team participated. It has been about 15 years since I became a worship pastor, and I have been working with them all this time. What I love about the New Life worship team is how well everyone gets along. Over the years of worship ministry, I have realized that what matters more than musical skills and abilities is how much harmony exists in our relationships. When each person harmonizes and praises God together, an indescribable unity and joy arise. When each person’s desire to worship God resonates, merges, and explodes with the song lyrics and music, a great power is born within our hearts, and we come to a shared conviction that Jesus, whom we praise, is the only one worthy of all praise! In this, our hearts are transformed by God, and we experience an abundance of hope and joy.
We each have our own thoughts, preferences, songs we want to sing, arrangements, and styles. However, when we set aside such agenda and worship the Lord together, the Lord’s presence emerges. It is a very mysterious moment. I believe we were able to capture such moments on video during this recording.
Among the members who participated in this video recording was someone whose family member was battling terminal cancer. This person was very important to all of us, being both a mother and a grandmother. Her family, and worship team member, held feelings of anxiety and prayers in their hearts. My grandfather, too, was repeatedly hospitalized due to old age. Thinking of my grandfather, who grew thinner by the day, made my heart ache. In fact, two weeks after this shoot, she passed away, and a month and a half later, my grandfather also passed away from old age (he made a confession of faith in his final moments. Hallelujah!). Even in the midst of such pain and anxiety, when we gather to worship God, the Lord’s presence overflows, and our heavenly Father grants us peace and joy in our hearts.
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:20
The Lord is with us in our praise. This music video is not just a visual representation of music, but a moment where our lives, bearing various backgrounds, resonated together.
On the technical side, the production of this music video followed these steps: First, we recorded the song and then filmed the video while playing the recorded song. Afterward, we synchronized the video and audio to complete the music video. Since the singers and musicians had already gone through the recording process, they were able to relax and enjoy the shoot on the filming day.
For the recording, we recorded each instrument and vocal individually using Pro Tools. We recorded each vocal individually. Only the live drums were recorded in a recording studio. Finally, we mixed down the audio recorded with Pro Tools and the live drum audio in the recording studio. Although I have been doing home recording with Pro Tools for many years, I found that mixing down in a recording studio is very beneficial for balancing and increasing sound pressure.
The video was greatly contributed to by Ben Cassell of Creative Cassell Films, who also helped with the previous music video. Since he was the only one filming, we recorded the same song four times, and then Ben edited and connected the good cuts. His sense of style and filming method shone again this time.
There are various methods for shooting music videos. This production method required considerable effort and time, but the result turned out very well. Thank you to everyone for watching the video. I plan to continue the production projects to release more Japanese worship songs to encourage worship in Japan.
